Is Trump killing the Republican Party? It still looks like his divide-and-conquer politics is doing exactly that

By Will Marshall

Oct 25, 2018 | 1:45 PM

Base-only (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP)

Led by a divisive and dissembling president, America appears to have arrived at peak polarization. At first glance, that would seem to favor Republicans, who dominate Washington and most state governments. But as next month’s midterm elections are likely to show, President Trump’s divide-and-conquer tactics are driving the GOP into a political box canyon.

His strategy is brutally simple: convince culturally insecure white Americans that they are losing “their” country to minorities, immigrants and politically correct liberals. Trump’s scare tactics enabled him to secure a victory in the Electoral College in 2016, despite losing the popular vote by nearly three million votes. Since then, however, he’s done nothing to expand his party’s appeal.

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By doubling down on his fractious formula of nativism, white identity politics and America First nationalism, Trump has tightened his grip on blue-collar whites and evangelical Christians — and on Republican politicians terrified of getting crosswise with pro-Trump zealots. But Trump’s White House reality show appears to be hurting GOP candidates in some places, especially white-collar suburbs.

Polls show that Democrats are poised to claim many of the 25 GOP-held House Districts Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. In 21 of these mostly suburban districts, reports The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein, Trump’s approval rating is an abysmal 38%. “Not only did a staggering 70% of college-educated white women in these districts disapprove of Trump’s performance, but so did 58% of college-educated white men, usually a reliable Republican constituency,” notes Brownstein.

More ominously for the GOP, Democrats also are strongly contesting traditionally Republican seats in red states like Texas and Arizona and across the Midwest. As Democrats make inroads among white suburbanites, Republicans aren’t making offsetting gains among other groups of voters.

That’s why they are so obsessed with suppressing an imaginary plague of voter fraud in America. Anxiety over a static and aging pool of GOP voters also explains the party’s hostility toward immigrants. In fact, Trump and his party see immigration as a feeder system for the Democrats’ growing multiethnic coalition, and hence an existential threat to their ability to retain political power. The recent flap over a White House directive to the Census Bureau that it start asking people if they are citizens stems from the GOP’s growing sense of demographic dread. According to internal Commerce Department emails, Republicans fret that illegal aliens are being counted as U.S. residents for purposes of drawing Congressional district.

Trump’s base-only strategy makes it difficult for Republicans to poach moderate independent and Democratic voters, especially among groups whose share of the electorate is growing — minorities, the young and college-educated women. Take the biggest and fastest-growing group, Latinos. George W. Bush averaged nearly 40% of the Latino vote in his two presidential wins. Only a quarter of Latinos approve of the job Trump is doing.

Latinos are not single-issue voters. Many are socially conservative and ambivalent about immigration. But many naturally take offense at Trump’s cruel family separation policy and his Chicken Little claims that “criminal aliens” from South of the border are running wild in U.S. streets.

Trump’s antics also hinder GOP outreach to other key groups of voters. According to Gallup tracking polls, only one-third of women and younger voters approve of his performance. And while hip-hop icon Kanye West may be drawn to Trump’s “dragon energy,” 90% of black voters disapprove of the President. These low numbers have barely budged since Trump took office, showing that he’s done nothing to improve his or his party’s standing with these voters.

The GOP may hold out greater hopes for Asian-Americans, who constitute just over 5% of the U.S. population. Conservatives are lauding a lawsuit by Asian-American students alleging that Harvard’s affirmative action policies discriminate against them. GOP efforts to use affirmative action as a wedge issue for Asian-Americans as well as whites will have to reckon with the fact that only 27% of the former backed Trump for pPesident.

To be clear, I’m not endorsing the theory that America’s changing demographics inevitably will produce a progressive political majority. The point here rather is to underscore the mounting costs to Republicans of Trump’s cynical exploitation of white identity politics and cultural resentment. He’s narrowing his party’s political base by alienating college-educated whites, especially women, and burning bridges to young and minority voters.

There’s zero chance that Trump will drop his tactic of maximum polarization, since it’s the only way he can win reelection. A maestro when it comes to manipulating the fears and status anxieties of older and less educated white voters, Trump is utterly incapable of framing rational arguments to persuadable voters.

So far, GOP leaders who have qualms about Trump have consoled themselves with the claim that they are getting what they want from him: A big tax cut, conservative Supreme Court justices and judges, deregulation, attacks on the “liberal” media and other staples of the GOP political playbook. But if Democrats retake the House and roll up big midterm gains in state elections, they’ll have to rethink that calculus. Trump’s “wins” won’t look so exciting if they come at the expense of the GOP’s ability to hold onto past gains, widen its political base and compete everywhere in the country.

And the implications for Democrats? The last thing they should do is embrace a left-wing version of Trump’s narrowly tribal politics. Instead, they should adopt a two-pronged strategy for making inroads at both the core and periphery of the static GOP coalition.

Democrats aren’t going to win back non-college whites any time soon, but they need to chip away at the Republican’s huge advantage with these voters. And by taking radically pragmatic stands on issues like encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, protecting health coverage, avoiding trade wars with U.S. allies, restoring fiscal responsibility and setting realistic goals for curbing climate change, they can peel off college-educated Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are sick and tired of seeing their once grand old party degenerate into a cult of personality.